Did Isaiah Prophesy a Virgin Birth?

Isaiah is a beloved book of the Bible for its multiple specific prophecies regarding Jesus’ birth, life, and death. However, Bible skeptics must oppose the idea of predictive prophecy because it is one of the most unique aspects of Scripture that sets it apart from the “holy books” of other religions. If the Bible contains genuine prophecy, it must be divinely inspired.

One of the ways they try to attack the idea of prophecy is to argue that Christians have co-opted Old Testament texts to speak inappropriately about Jesus when the original prophet and audience would not have understood the prophecy as messianic.

To be very clear from the outset, we believe the best interpreter of Scripture is Scripture, and Matthew 1:22–23 states that Jesus’ birth fulfilled the Immanuel prophecy—so what is the point of investigating further? Just because Jesus is the ultimate and final fulfillment of the Immanuel prophecy doesn’t mean there wasn’t a more immediate fulfillment during Isaiah’s day, and it doesn’t mean that Mary was the only “virgin” in view. So if there is more to it, we should want to know. And if Jesus is the only fulfillment for the Immanuel prophecy, looking closer will help us better defend that interpretation.

What Does It Mean for Jesus to Fulfill Scripture?

We often think of prophecy and fulfillment in the clearest sense where there is a prediction that something will happen in the future, and then it either happens (true prophecy) or doesn’t (false prophecy). However, take a look at Matthew 2 when the slaughter of the baby boys in Bethlehem is said to be a fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:15. The context of Jeremiah’s oracle is clearly the Israelites going into exile and is surrounded by promises of return and restoration. There is no obvious messianic message in the context, so how can Matthew say that the passage was really fulfilled in Jesus’ day?

First, we have to expand our definition of fulfilled to fit what the Bible describes as fulfillment. It includes direct predictions about future events but also events that prefigure Jesus or find their full meaning in his life, death, and resurrection. Many fulfillments are typological fulfillments, i.e., an Old Testament person or event typified something that Jesus would more completely reveal. So in the case of Jeremiah 31, Matthew takes a passage that was originally lamenting Israel’s exile because of their disobedience and applied that to the murder of the boys in Bethlehem.

When we understand that typological fulfillment often includes both a contemporary and a messianic meaning, this allows us to look for a contemporary “virgin” and “Immanuel” without minimizing the fact that Jesus was the ultimate fulfillment of the prophecy. Is there, in fact, a contemporary fulfillment? To answer this question, we have to look at the context of the prophecy.

The Context of the Immanuel Prophecy

Ahaz became king of Judah when he was just twenty years old. During his father’s reign, Pekah, the king of Israel, had put Jerusalem under siege, and he inherited this precarious political situation. To make things worse, Pekah had joined forces with the king of Syria to defeat Ahaz and put their own king on David’s throne. Ahaz answered this threat with a political alliance of his own—he joined forces with the king of Assyria.

Isaiah was sent to the young king with an encouraging message—God remembered his promise to David and would protect the Davidic throne. Isaiah commanded Ahaz to trust in God rather than in the king of Assyria. To guarantee the authenticity of God’s promise, Isaiah commands Ahaz to pick a sign, any sign, to be given to him.

In response, the sign becomes not only a message of hope and the survival of the Davidic lineage, but a message of judgment for the current generation.

Ahaz suddenly became very pious and refused to “test the Lord” by requesting the offered sign. In reality, this refusal indicated that Ahaz was already committed to his political solution and would not trust God. In response, the sign becomes not only a message of hope and the survival of the Davidic lineage, but a message of judgment for the current generation. Syria and Israel would indeed soon cease to be a problem for Jerusalem and Judah. But the very political power they depended on for salvation from these two threats would be the instrument of judgment. They would impoverish Judah and leave them with a monarchy in name only.

Directly after this, Isaiah 8 relates the birth of his second son, Maher-shalal-hash-baz—is this the Immanuel he predicted? No—the Prophetess does not fit the description of the woman who will give birth to him (we will examine the Hebrew word almah shortly). Furthermore, this boy has his own prophetic significance—“for before the boy knows how to cry ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria” (8:4).

In that context, however, Immanuel is mentioned again—God addresses Immanuel and calls Israel “your land” (8:8). “God is with us” in 8:10 is also “Immanuel.” God would use Assyria to judge Ahaz’s reliance on stronger political entities, but the faithful were commanded to not be afraid but to trust in the Lord—a remnant would return, and after that, Immanuel would be born.

Isaiah 9 contains a clearer messianic prophecy where the child to be born is given clear titles and attributes of deity as well as kingship. Again in Isaiah 11, the son is said to be a shoot from the stump of Jesse—this indicates that the Davidic house would lose all its wealth and status, returning to its days of relative obscurity. Joseph, the “next in line” for the throne when Jesus was born, was a humble carpenter so clearly had no special privilege based on his lineage. The Isaiah 11 prophecy moves from describing the wisdom and justice of Immanuel’s reign to the change he will bring about in the created order. Animals that are currently predators and dangerous to both livestock and humans will no longer pose a threat, indicating a return to an Edenic state. Immanuel’s rule also is not contained to Israel alone but extends to the nations.

The Sign of the Virgin Birth

The word Isaiah used for the mother of Immanuel is the Hebrew word almah. The Greek translation of the Old Testament in this passage used the word parthenos, which is clearly the word for a mature woman who has not had sex. But does the word almah mean virgin?

When we look at a word in a different language, we have to look at the semantic range of that word, because sometimes the semantic range of a word encompasses a set of ideas that English does not have a single word for. So what set of ideas defines an almah?

The almah is a young woman of marriageable age who is unmarried. It does not exactly overlap with the word “virgin,” but virginity would be expected of the almah. An almah could engage in fornication or be assaulted, but a child resulting from such an event could hardly be a great sign of hope to Judah and the Davidic house in the way Isaiah is prophesying. A virgin giving birth, however, fits the idea of a sign as high as heaven or as deep as Sheol—truly something that requires a miracle.

Some suggest that if Isaiah had wanted to speak of a virgin, he would have used the word bethulah. A bethulah is a young woman who may indeed be a virgin. But in Joel 1:8, the word is used of a married woman, and when it is used of Rebekah in Genesis 24:16, the text calls her “a maiden [bethulah] whom no man had known.” If the word bethulah needs further elaboration to make it clear that she is also a virgin, then the idea of virginity is not inherently part of the word. As one commentator of Isaiah put it:

True enough, b^ethulah may designate a virgin, but it may also refer to a betrothed virgin (b^ethulah m^e’orasah) . . . and in later Aramaic incantation texts, the Aramaic equivalent of b^ethulah refers to a married woman. . . . In the light of these considerations it appears that Isaiah choice of ‘almah was deliberate. It seems to be the only word in the language which unequivocally signifies an unmarried woman. No other available Hebrew word would clearly indicate that the one whom it designates was unmarried. Consequently, no other word would have been suitable for fulfilling the requirements of the sign such as the context demanded. None of these other words would have pointed to an unnatural birth. Only ‘almah makes clear that the mother was unmarried.1

In other words, “wherever the context allows a judgment, ‘almâ is not a general term meaning ‘young woman’ but a specific one meaning ‘virgin.’”2 This also means that the Greek translation of parthenos, used both in the LXX of Isaiah and in Matthew’s quote of the passage, is appropriate.

So clearly, Isaiah was referring to a virgin—either someone in the Davidic court who was soon to be married, in which case the prophecy would refer to the immediacy of the defeat of the kings that Ahaz feared—or to Mary only. If there was a contemporary virgin, by the time she could bear a son and before that son would know right from wrong, Isaiah’s prophecy would come to pass. But did such a birth occur in the Davidic court?

Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, is often said to be a contemporary candidate for the fulfillment of the Immanuel prophecy. However, Hezekiah was already born when Isaiah gave the prophecy, and Hezekiah is never presented in Scripture as Immanuel.

There is no contemporary candidate for Immanuel, nor for the virgin who would give birth to him in Ahaz’s day.

In fact, there is no contemporary candidate for Immanuel, nor for the virgin who would give birth to him in Ahaz’s day. But how could that sign be relevant for Ahaz’s day if it wouldn’t be fulfilled for 600 years?

Why the Sign Was Significant

It’s important to note that Ahaz rejected the offer of a personal sign, so Ahaz didn’t get one. Rather, God turned the gracious offer into a judgment. The kings that Ahaz was so afraid of would indeed cease to be a problem, and they would be defeated by Assyria just like Ahaz hoped. But Assyria wouldn’t stop with Syria and Israel—parts of Judah would be next.

However, a remnant would return, and the Davidic line would persist, and when the Davidic house was reduced to poverty with none of the privileges of kingship, then Immanuel would be born. Jesus’ birth was a valid sign to the house of David (remembering that he was born in a house which would have included Joseph’s family members, which would have been the house of David of the day!).

The future promise of Immanuel was a sign to Ahaz’s generation that God would not abandon the line that he promised would rule forever. Ahaz’s descendants would go into exile, but they would return, and God would bring forth the miraculous son, born of a virgin, when it seemed like David’s line had lost all its kingly splendor. Therefore, Matthew perfectly interpreted and applied Isaiah’s prophecy under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.